Many small and medium-sized businesses tend to struggle since they typically have a lack of resources. Most of them are understaffed but still have to make time for social media, search engine rankings, leads, following up on leads, and more.

While at the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, Mike McDonald of WebProNews spoke with Genoo’s CEO Kim Albee about these very issues. Genoo provides tools that allow businesses to manage multiple aspects in one place. As a result, the business has more time to dedicate to leads, follow-ups, and conversions.

These areas are very important to small businesses because, as Albee points out, “…if you don’t follow up, then whatever you spent to get those leads lose their value every month that you don’t follow up.”

In addition, the company puts enterprise level information into SMB terms. Often times at industry events, the perspective is from a large brand. Genoo takes that information and makes it applicable to SMBs.

Last week we published a post by Jade Craven which contained a list of 30 bloggers to watch in 2010 from her perspective.

As tends to happen with these kinds of posts – the list caused a lot of discussion!

Not only did people post comments about it and Tweet up a storm – some bloggers even put together alternative lists of bloggers that they are watching in 2010 (see Sherri’s list here for example).

Sherri’s list got me thinking – perhaps it’s time for a mini ProBlogger ‘Group Writing Project’.

My hope is that this little project will not only highlight some great bloggers, but that it’ll help bloggers generate a little link love from one blog to another within niches and also be useful to your readers (and hopefully some of these posts will generate some buzz for your blogs – these types of lists generally do!).

Your Task is to write a ‘Bloggers to Watch’ post on your blog

Jade’s list last week was a list of bloggers that she’s watching (and as a result did have a focus upon a certain type of blogger that she follows) – but my hope is that this little project will generate some lists of bloggers that focus upon all kinds of niches/industries.

• If you’re a craft blogger – write a list of Craft bloggers to watch in 2010.
• If you’re a sports blogger – write a list of sports bloggers to watch in 2010.
• If you’re a political blogger – write a list of political bloggers to watch in 2010.

Your list doesn’t have to be 30 bloggers – it could be 100, 50, 30, 10…. or if you have a small niche even smaller.

Once you’ve created your list…. Tell Us About It

After publishing your list – come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your new post (please only submit new posts that have been written this year).

Also take some time to surf through the other comments left on this post to see what lists that other readers have created!

I’m looking forward to reading your lists of bloggers to watch!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Create Your Own ‘Bloggers to Watch’ List and Tell Us About It Here

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Duplicate content issues are unfortunately, a continuing problem for webmasters. According to Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive, the search engines will likely pick the wrong pages if you let them determine which are the best pages on your site. To prevent this, she recommends that webmasters be proactive when it comes to duplicate content.

In order to be proactive, you need to be consistent. First of all, be consistent with your information architecture. Secondly, link consistently to the same URLs. Thirdly, send consistent messages to the search engines. By sending conflicting messages, you will be giving the search engines the opportunity to choose which page will show in the search results.

Thurow says that even though a page could have several differences such as color, order of words, etc., the search engines will not detect differences unless the content is dramatically different.

“Whenever you think of duplicate content, you can’t think of it only from a searcher perspective, you have to think how does a search engine see it and how can I make sure that the search engines and searchers get the best page on my website,” she pointed out.

In regards to the canonical tag, Thurow believes it is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it allows users to easily filter sites with content management systems. However, she believes it is a curse since it can be abused.

Site Logic’s Matt Bailey isn’t sick of Twitter, he’s just tired of marketers telling their clients they HAVE to be there.  Same with Facebook and whatever other ‘next big thing’ comes down the road.

At the 2009 Chicago SES, Abby Johnson caught up with Matt Bailey who shared his perspective on social media marketing and it’s relative importance to the overall marketing mix.

Bailey feels like businesses feel an unwarranted pressure to ‘get someone on Facebook or Twitter’ without fully understand why they are doing it – aside from the fact that some marketing expert told them they needed to.

Because this year was the last year for SES Chicago in December, it was bittersweet for many people including Matt McGowan, VP and Publisher of Incisive Media. In 2010, SES Chicago will take place in October instead. Although the weather will likely be better in October, the city will not be lit up for the holidays.

In spite of the coming changes, just over 2,100 attendees came out this year to experience the compelling sessions ranging from analytics to futuristic topics. One session that especially stood out to McGowan was called “From Search to Discovery.” It looked at how search is evolving beyond keywords and is now more focused on behavioral patterns and content. This transition is, in part, due to the rise of social networks.

This year’s show was also special since it was the first show with Mike Grehan as VP, Global Content Director with Incisive Media. According to McGowan, his vast industry experience and perspective is already influencing the show’s agenda in a positive way.

Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more coverage from SES Chicago 2009.

More and more, search isn’t just a matter of lots of text and ten blue links. Mixed media – think pictures and video – is a big deal. And an important Yahoo executive recently explained how this affects search from the perspective of his company, search engine users, and publishers.

Larry Cornett, Vice President of Product Management and Design for Yahoo Search, said in an interview with Abby Johnson that Yahoo is attempting to create a “personally relevant search experience” for people. The company wants to provide a comprehensive amount of information so that individuals can always find what they’re looking for.

To this end, Yahoo’s introduced a universal header that helps determine users’ intent. It can help direct someone who’s searching for a football player to Yahoo Sports, for example.

Of course, this approach means that publishers should take more than text search results into account. According to Cornett, they need to pay attention to how their brand is portrayed in image and video search results, and on Twitter, too.

Cornett then boiled the matter down to a fairly simple question publishers should ask themselves: “Am I really being represented the way I want to be in every one of these search experiences?”

Posted by randfish

The long tail of search demand has been around since the dawn of web search and, since that time, search marketers have been attempting to tap into the powerful stream that high quantities of unique content can provide. I recently came across some great data from Hitwise (about 1 year old, but still highly relevant) showing off just how substantive the long tail can be. Bill Tancer’s post – Sizing Up the Long Tail - gives some stats:

…the head and body together only account for 3.25% of all search traffic! In fact, the top terms don’t account for much traffic:

• Top 100 terms: 5.7% of the all search traffic
• Top 500 terms: 8.9% of the all search traffic
• Top 1,000 terms: 10.6% of the all search traffic
• Top 10,000 terms: 18.5% of the all search traffic

This means if you had a monopoly over the top 1,000 search terms across all search engines (which is impossible), you’d still be missing out on 89.4% of all search traffic. There’s so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles.

Top 10,000 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic

The truth is my research is still greatly understating the true size of the tail because:
• The Hitwise sample contains 10 million U.S. Internet users and a complete data set would uncover much larger portions of the long tail.
• The data set I used filtered out adult searches.
• I only looked at 3-months worth of data (which were some of the slower months for search engines).

To help put this in perspective, I made a few spiffy charts that can help to illustrate these points:

In this first chart, you can see a representation of Hitwise’s data from the four chunks Bill broke down.

In this next representation, I’m showing the classic "long tail" style curve, but color-coded to help show the various areas of keyword demand. Note that you could conceptually say that the 9,000 of the top 10,000 terms should technically fit into the chunky middle. Bill classified them thusly in his post, but I tend to think that at those demand levels, we’re still talking about "head" of the curve figures.

For both of these graphics, there’s a large, high-res version available by clicking the chart. You can find lots, lots more on our Free Charts page

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Posted by randfish

Over the years, I’ve heard a number of recommendations for SEO given out that I simply don’t understand or find logically flawed. I thought it might be interesting to share some of these and hear more perspectives. It could be that I just don’t comprehend the reasoning or haven’t thought things through, but I personally don’t always recommend these, so it’s worth at least a discussion.

#1 – Succesful SEO Copywriting = Keywords & Content Structure

Here’s an example of two pages upon which different kinds of SEO has been performed:

I struggle with the fact that 90%+ of the SEO copywriting advice I see on the web or hear at conferences relates to the use of keywords and the content structure (I’m guilty of this myself sometimes, but have been trying to break that habit). While those things may add value from a technical algorithmic ranking perspective, the value of even one additional external link, at least in my opinion, dwarfs the value of having the keyword repeated in the H2 tag the correct number of times.

It seems to me that if and when copywriters are given the knowledge to understand the web’s ecosphere around their content arena, and asked to target those who share and spread content on the web, their SEO work is likely to add far more value. That shouldn’t stop SEOs and writers from employing good keyword usage practices, but I wish I saw more about how to "write for the Linkerati" and leverage the emotions that make people link.

#2 – Never Exchange Links with Other Sites

There’s been so much fear pushed around the web about reciprocal link exchanges and link trading programs that the message has been muddled up into the completely nonsensical "never link to someone who links to you." To my mind, that’s a touch of lunacy. The web’s link graph is meant to be representative of the connections, endorsements and relationships of the real world. Artificially manipulating it, even when you’re doing so because you think Google wants you to, doesn’t make much sense.

The advice holds true when an offer comes via email suggesting you link to a site with which you have no relationship and, in exchange, they’ll link to you.  It holds true when a directory wants you to link to it in order to get a link out. It doesn’t hold true when some blogger has said something you care about and linked to you, or when a business partner has endorsed your work and is hoping you can reciprocate. I created a handy little risk chart to help explain my positions on "reciprocal" links:

For example, there’s nothing wrong with SEOmoz linking to Distilled’s website – our partners in the UK – and likewise, getting a link back from them. If, however, we weren’t actually partners but only linked back and forth in order to artificially inflate one another’s link popularity, it’s a different story.

#3 – Rewrite the H1 Headline to Be Unique from the Title Tag

I’m not sure exactly where this advice originated, but I’ve heard it from some SEOs I really respect, including my good friend Todd Malicoat. Still, I’m highly skeptical. I’ve tried it a few times in test environments and looked at some rough correlation data – both of which suggesting that there’s no particular benefit to having unique titles vs. H1s.

The big reason I’m against it is that H1s are intended to be the "headline" of a page, and if you click on a search result, then see a different headline on the page itself, it’s a very off-putting experience. This is one of those times when, even if it was good for SEO, I think the usability argument might trump. The expectation created by a title is that the article will be that precise piece. I have trouble imagining search engineers deciding that disparity between the two should result in a higher ranking.

#4 – Never Spam Report Your Competitors

A number of arguments are made against spam reporting the competition when they’ve employed tactics that violate the search engine guidlines. Some operators in the field want to make this a moral or ethical issue (AKA – the "thieves pact" made by being an SEO must be honored). However, since there’s no way to verify whether a particular SEO does or does not submit their competitors’ manipulative tactics to the engines, it could easily be that those most vocal about rejecting it as a path to success are actually the same ones who employ it most. Nothing stops an SEO from claiming to adhere to the "no outing" code while quietly turning in all of his/her cohorts.

This paradigm makes one path obvious – don’t say, at least publicly, that you report spam. Vocal parts of the SEO community are vehement about making examples of (and socially shunning/shaming) those who violate this "code of silence." However, from a practicality standpoint, it may still be valuable to your business to call out spam to the search engines so your site/page has a more level playing field from which to operate (as a white hat, competing against spammers is no fun). The vast majority of smart SEOs I’ve ever encountered expect that their sites are being consistently spam reported and thus engage only in tactics that are either 100% white hat or which they feel confident the engines will be hard pressed to discover (to my mind, the former makes far more sense).

Talking to lots of friends in the field, there seem to be a number of arguments in favor of spam reporting:

• You may be able to improve your own ranking by removing a competitor
• It’s a very low time/cost activity and typically a valuable learning experience (even those against reporting still strongly endorse researching and learning from those who do use black/gray hat tactics)
• You may gain trust in the eyes of the search engines (so long as you are 100% clean yourself)
• The spam you report may make its way into the index in a scalable way, pushing out multiple manipulators and thus leaving more room, on a macro scale, for your site to perform positively
• You can get a better sense for what the engines do/don’t tolerate and to what degree by seeing which tactics warrant immediate penalties vs. long delays or no action at all
• You may help the engines provide better search results for all users, thus increasing the overall value of the web

And a few reasons against:

• You may inadvertently hurt your own site’s rankings if you’ve engaged in (or unknowingly benefitted from) particular types of spam
• Reporting spam may hurt your fellow SEOs (gray or black hat though their tactics may be) and is thus unethical

The ethics argument against is certainly the most compelling, and as SEOmoz prides itself so highly on the ethics and values we adopt, I thought a quick review of the subject was in order. Thus, I checked out some great works on ethics from the Markula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. In particular, I found it valuable to read What is Ethics, as well as Whistle Blowing in the Public Sector. My basic takeaway is that If you believe that search engines are an oppressive (or potential oppressive) entity that does not have the best interests of the web or its users in mind, then complying with their request to help punish abusers has some ethical concerns. Likewise, if you feel that those who spam or manipulate the engines’ indices are removing value from the web’s usefulness, you may have similar ethical concerns staying quiet. Similar to reporting criminals for violating unjust laws (or turning them in to a corrupt, oppresive regime), the ethics of the situation depends greatly on your view of the engines and those who violate their guidelines.

#5 – A Site’s Age is Indicative of Ranking Ability

This is one area where I worry considerably about the value of correlation data. While sites that have longer history may indeed have a greater proclivity for high rankings, I don’t personally believe that the engines use a raw "age" metric or even an "age of links" metric to inflate potential rankings.

The "age of site" or "age of links" argument relies on the idea that search engineers believe age to be equated with higher quality. While there may certainly be value in analyzing the temporal nature of links and content, I struggle to think that older universally (or even mostly) correlates with a better result and better user experience. Age may have some bearing on certain kinds of rankings in specific scenarios and could play a role in trust/spam analysis as well, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a positive metric for judging overall potential performance.

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Obviously, this post is largely opinion-based, and like all material on the blog, shouldn’t be misconstrued as anything else. I’m looking forward to discussion on these topics in the comments.

 

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This post was written by Alan Skorkin. Alan shares his thoughts about software development, people and teamwork on his blog skorks.com.

Every blogger wants to be successful, it is only natural. We often start out blogging about something that is our passion and we want everyone else to be just as excited about our passion as we are. It is therefore surprising just how many people have no concrete plans regarding what they want to achieve with their blog (let alone how they are going to achieve it) beyond vague dreams of grandeur. I understand that it can be difficult to set yourself concrete goals, you may not really know what you’re capable of and so much is simply beyond your control. But, I have a trick that you can use whenever you’re starting a new blog (or want to kick-start your existing blog) that will help you focus and put everything in perspective.

Think of your blog as a country that is planning an invasion. What does an invasion have to do with the internet, I hear you ask? Well, consider this. What you want to do with your blog is to take over the internet (i.e. be successful), but the internet is a big place and you probably won’t be able to hold the whole thing, so what you’re really trying to do is carve out a little piece of the internet for yourself (being the supreme ruler, god and emperor of it is strictly optional ) and that is exactly what an invasion is all about – at least in the classical sense. Whenever you’re planning an invasion you don’t just send your troops out to ’see how they go’ and ‘play it by ear’ the first thing you need is…

A Strategy

Every grand strategy starts with a grand objective. Where do you want to end up and at what point will you pronounce yourself a success? You need to know what you’re working towards, it gives you your general direction. Once you have a direction, you need to map out – in broad strokes – how you will achieve your grand objective. What are the steps on the road to your goal – these are your milestones. Get 1000 subscribers, have at least 100 blog posts published, guest post on 10 of the top 100 blogs, get at least 300 visitors per day from Google, these are all great milestones and can form part of your strategy. And don’t forget to set yourself some deadlines, you’re invading, not going for a leisurely stroll, you don’t want to be at it forever. This is all well and good, I hear you say, but how do I reach each of those milestones? For this you need…

Superior Tactics

A grand strategy is necessary, but invasions are not won with grand plans, it is all about having superior tactics from battle to battle. In the blogging world it comes down to:

• how targeted your posts are – make sure your posts fit your niche, otherwise you dilute your message. It can make tactical sense to creatively jump out of your niche once in a while, but in general you want to play to your strengths (presumably you chose your niche based on your strengths). You will fight better and last longer (i.e. write better posts) and you will constantly reinforce your message.
• how timely your posts are – learn to know what’s happening in your niche, find out what’s important, what’s hot and what everyone is talking about. You need to know when and where to strike to achieve maximum impact. People don’t want stale content, that doesn’t mean you always have to break news, but a timely opinion piece on a hot topic can bring a tremendous amount of exposure.
• how your promote your posts to give them maximum exposure – you can’t just use brute force all the time, sometimes it helps to use terrain to your advantage. In blogging terms that means you need to promote your posts, use the social media terrain and let it do half your work for you.

Even with all these efforts it can still be tough, you’re targeted and you’re timely, but the terrain is vast and there is just so much ground to cover. Plus the more ground you cover, the more you leave your flanks exposed, not a good situation. You will need some help, you have to find yourself some…

Allies

Often you get stuck in a rut, you hit a stalemate, you and the internet are just equally matched. This is where having allies comes in really handy. It sometimes makes sense to band together with another invader, you’re both after the same goal and there is more than enough territory for everyone. You can help promote each others content or provide a fresh voice on each others blogs, and you don’t have to band together with just one, sometimes a coalition is a good idea – everyone benefits. You might even try to get the support of a major power (a top blogger), that can be a real bonus, all you have to do is be creative and persistent in your approach (a little luck doesn’t hurt either). And of course don’t forget the local powers (the social media power users), these can make the outcome of some of your battles a foregone conclusion. A successful invasion can be largely about relationships and the internet is no different. But of course, no amount of allies will help you win your battles if you don’t…

Win The Skirmishes

Skirmishes are the bread and butter of any invasion. They are not glamorous and there are lots of them, but together they combine to let you succeed when you fight your major battles. In blogging the skirmishes are your daily (or at least) regular periods when you produce your content. It is not a glamorous time and it is not very social, but it is the bread and butter of a successful blog. You need to make time to regularly produce content, it doesn’t have to be daily, but you do have to keep doing it. The more skirmishes you fight the more you wear down the enemy, or in the case of blogging the more content you get out there the more chances you have of being noticed. There is one thing though, that will always jeopardize your chances of winning your skirmishes (and battles)…

Getting Distracted By The Scenery

There is always more to learn in the blogging world. There is a lot of info, much of it free and you can keep reading and learning indefinitely. But while you might get knowledge or satisfaction from watching the scenery, it is also how you get ambushed. You look around at the beautiful trees (or helpful blogging info) and before you know it you’re ambushed and have lost the skirmish (not writing content) and ultimately the battle and the war. You have your strategy and you know what tactics to employ, these may or may not be the latest and greatest, but they’re tried and true and they do work – stick to them. And if you really want to give yourself some motivation and kick this invasion up a notch try…

A Blitzkrieg

In a blitzkrieg you hit the enemy fast and you hit them hard, and you keep moving before they get a chance to recover. This means you brainstorm an idea for several successful posts or a series of posts, then you write them all and then you release them in quick succession and go all out promoting each one. I don’t mean release them one minute after each other, but instead release them judiciously. Build some hype around the first one and before it starts dying down, you release the second and build hype and promote that one, and then do the same for the third. Don’t give them a chance to recover. A blitzkrieg series of posts can really allow you to move far in short period of time. The allies you built before will really come in handy here (to protect your flanks as you move forward). Sometimes though, all this is not enough, none of it seems to work because you have forgotten one of the most important things…

The Logistics

Your invasion will only continue to have momentum as long as it is well supplied, ratty equipment and threadbare clothing will come back to bite you eventually (invading Russia in the middle of winter has proven this time and time again ). For you this means, looking at where your blog lives and maybe sprucing it up a little while you’re at it. Make sure your blog is hosted reliably, a poor host can really cost you. It doesn’t mean you need to pay an ëarm and a leg’, but it does mean you server should be able to handle traffic spikes that you will no doubt supply through your promotional efforts. At the very least you need to make sure you have a caching solution of some sort in place (e.g. WP-Cache plugin for Wordpress). It is really embarrassing when your blog falls over after a small traffic spike – almost as embarrassing, as realizing your tanks are not water proof when you need to cross a river. Oh and do invest a little bit into your blog design it will pay off handsomely in the long run. Everyone enjoys a unique and cool-looking design, it may not be the major selling point of your blog, but it does add that little bit extra. Finally, if you remember nothing else, always remember this old maxim…

No Plan Survives Contact With The Enemy

What this means in terms of an invasion is that no matter how good your strategy and tactics are it can all go to hell in a second when you’re in the thick of things. The key is being flexible enough to adjust to these changing conditions, take advantage of the opportunities and minimize the losses you take from circumstances you couldn’t foresee. In blogging terms it means – well, exactly the same thing. You need to have a grand plan, you need to set milestones for yourself and work towards achieving them, you need to know how you will promote your content and your blog and you need to build relationships to help you do so. But above all you need to be flexible enough to adjust to anything. If something is not working for you, scrap it and try something else, figure out a different way to approach that A-List blogger instead of giving up. Find a way to advertise creatively rather than using Adwords like everyone else. Always remember this, you can become as successful as those who have come before you by emulating them, but to surpass them you will need to forge your own path. I wish you a successful invasion!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Starting A Successful Blog Is Like Planning An Invasion

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Posted by jennita

SEO as a line item in a project plan… sounds preposterous right? Well I’ve seen it happen, and needless to say it didn’t work out so well. The act of optimizing a website to be search engine friendly is a combination of tasks that are fully integrated throughout the dev lifecycle. Not a single line in a project plan expecting to gather all items related to SEO into one task, to be done by one person.

So what does the dev lifecycle look like, well I’ve always likened it to the game of Chutes and Ladders. As you move through the process, you run across chutes and ladders that either launch you forward or move you back 3 spaces.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been having some great conversations both on YOUmoz and the main blog about how SEOs and developers view each other, how they can work together, and why they shouldn’t try to kill each other. Heh. The conclusion that we should all know at least a little about each other’s jobs and that working together (rather than against each other) is beneficial to everyone is fairly obvious.

However, in most organizations, it’s not as cut and dry as just having the SEOs and developers working together. Often times a project team includes a project manager, business analyst, product manager, QA engineer, SEO, designer, development lead and various other team members. So, how do you make certain that the SEO efforts don’t fall through the cracks? What are the best ways to get SEO into the dev process? Who are the key players? And what happens when SEO doesn’t make it into the process?

Ask the Experts

Having come from a development background, I have been a part of many dev projects and have specifically worked on SEO related projects both large and small scale. I asked a few experts to also weigh in and give their perspective on making SEO part of the development lifecycle.

Jessica Bowman is well-known in the SEO community and runs an SEM / SEO In-House Blog. You can often find her speaking or moderating in-house SEO sessions at numerous conferences throughout the year. Just next week she’ll be speaking on the panel "In-House SEO: Structuring the Organization for Success" at SES San Jose [I'll be there as well, covering it for the MozPlex, say hello if you see me!]. I’ve heard her speak several times and asked her to weigh in on getting SEO into the development process.

Fran Larkin is the Senior Product Manager for Simply Hired. He’s responsible for the job seeker experience and SEO on SimplyHired.com as well as business development for over 5,000 Job-a-matic publishers, including MySpace, BusinessWeek, CNNMoney.com and The Washington Post. [Whew!] I worked directly with him on an in-depth Site Audit a couple months ago, and have seen firsthand how quickly some of the SEO initiatives have made it to production.

Where Does SEO Fit into the Dev Process

When an organization is about to begin a new development project, how and where does SEO fit into that process? Every company will be slightly different, but the ideas are generally the same.

Jessica Bowman:

 “The shorter list would be where doesn’t SEO go into the development process? SEO needs to be intricately weaved throughout every aspect of the development life cycle from inception to QA testing:  identifying the ROI of the project when you incorporate SEO, sitting in requirements meetings, collaborating on wireframes BEFORE they are presented to the project team and contributing detailed SEO requirements to project documentation and QA Testing (or have the QA testing team test for SEO).”

Fran Larkin:

"Simply Hired is an extremely job seeker-focused company, so from the very beginning of our product planning efforts, we work hard to align our user experience goals with an SEO-friendly site architecture."

Making Sure SEO Doesn’t Fall Through the Cracks

With all the back and forth that happens on that journey through the game of Chutes and Ladders… aka the dev lifecycle, how do you make sure that your SEO efforts don’t fall through the cracks?
 
Jessica Bowman:

SEO needs to be involved every step of the way – in some areas an SEO team needs to be more intricately involved in the nitty-gritty details than a website product manager, which is surprising to most companies, and even many SEOs. What companies do not realize is that the role of an SEO is not like any other function in the organization.  What I tell clients is that SEO needs to be two-peas-in-a-pod with Website Product Managers and Project Managers (at some companies this is the same role).

Website Product Managers

• Ultimately responsible for the website and its success.
• It’s in their best interest to maximize traffic, which includes SEO traffic.
• Get a product manager to buy into SEO fully.
  They can become your most coveted SEO champion, because they are in a position that both IT and business sponsors will listen to.

Project Managers

• Oversee every minute detail that is completed for a project.
• Organize meetings and ensure the right people are involved in reviews and approvals.
• It’s vital for project managers to fully understand how and why SEO needs to be involved. They are the ones who can make it happen.

One of the things an SEO should do is comb through the project plan to identify where SEO needs to be involved in a project because most project managers are not experienced at integrating SEO into the right places of the development life cycle.  If a company hasn’t integrated SEO into a project before, it’s worth the money to pay a consultant with experience integrating SEO into the development process for a given project, and once you learn, you can transfer those insights into future projects.

Fran Larkin:

“We explicitly document the SEO requirements of each new product that we launch – everything from the URLs to individual nofollows. As a result, our dev team has the detail that they need, and our QA team checks to ensure that the SEO requirements function as specified,”

The Key Players

This is a big one for me, the “who” of the project. Does every person who’s a part of the project need to have some understanding of optimizing websites to be search engine friendly? Or is it only necessary for specific people to watch and care about the SEO tasks? Is it ok for developers to not understand why they need to set up 301 redirects, or is the fact that they know how to do it good enough?

Jessica Bowman:

"It’s best when everyone on a project has an understanding of SEO because then everyone can look out for SEO on each project.  The most important roles to understand SEO include:

• Lead programmer(s)
• Lead Usability Designer(s)
• Product manager(s)
• Project manager(s)

When looking at the roles, focus on each role by project, rather than team. Often times, especially in large organizations, the usability, design and programming teams are split up into different projects, each working on a different release and your ‘seo expert’ within the programming team may not be involved on all projects. It’s vital that the leads assigned to any given project have intimate knowledge about SEO, or work closely with the SEO team in a way that they have never worked with any other function in the company."

Fran Larkin:

Simply Hired is an extremely job seeker-focused company, so from the very beginning of our product planning efforts, we work hard to align our user experience goals with an SEO-friendly site architecture.

I’d like to add that the Quality Assurance team should have a keen understanding of SEO in general plus they need to know specifically what they are testing. Additionally, the QA team should have a complete set of tools to help them test whether a redirect is for sure doing a 301, or whether the analytics program is tracking correctly for example.

When SEO isn’t a Part of the Process

I have personally seen a site’s traffic plummet when SEO wasn’t taken into consideration. For example, in one case, a section of the site was being moved to a new (and improved – heh) platform. This new platform created two different URLs for the pages, plus the original pages were never 301’d to the new page. Now, the company had 3 different sets of URLs that all lead to the same content and that were all accessible in one way or another (through feeds, site search, in-bound and internal links).

Jessica Bowman:

"When SEO isn’t part of the process, you leave money on the table, and throw even more money out the door and in the garbage for good measure. The worst case scenario is that it can wreak havoc on your efforts and can cost thousands of dollars to fix (hundreds of thousands for large organizations and complex websites), it can throw away years of SEO work and tank your rankings and traffic in a single release.  A lot is at stake when you make changes to a website, it’s surprising how sometimes the smallest little change that doesn’t seem to relate to SEO can negatively impact the bottom line.  For this reason, it’s in a company’s best interest to educate everyone in the company on SEO and keep the SEO team informed on what is happening in each release."

Fran Larkin:

SEO issues are treated like any other bugs on the site.  We track them, determine the importance and prioritize accordingly.

Where Does That Leave Us?

Every organization and their processes (or lack of processes) are different. What is universal though is the importance of weaving SEO into that process. As both Jessica and Fran mentioned, it’s important to make sure everyone is on board and has an understanding of what SEO is and why it’s important. Finding an SEO proponent within each department will help your efforts immensely.

For example, at Simply Hired, they send the marketing and product team to conferences like SES, circulate SEO-related blog posts with the company, and give all new engineers a copy of the Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet to post on their cube wall. 

Another way to get people involved is to set up various training courses with different people within the company and ask them to try their new SEO skills on their personal websites. Most people have some sort of website and get a lot more interested in having their personal site rank well in the search engines, than a big corporate site that they have no control over.

What do you do in your organization to make sure SEO doesn’t fall through the cracks? What works and what doesn’t work? Have you learned any lessons you’d like to share?

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